Petersburg Campaign

The Petersburg Campaign was one of the final campaigns in the
eastern theater during the American
Civil War (1861–1865). It began on June 15, 1864, with the sustained
contest to control the city—Virginia's second largest and the supply center for
the Confederate capital at Richmond—and concluded with its occupation by Union forces on April
3, 1865. The campaign included parallel actions north of the James River, east of
Richmond, and was inextricably linked with simultaneous military actions
elsewhere, most directly in the Shenandoah Valley. Union armies under
Ulysses S. Grant
failed to storm Petersburg from June 15 to 18 and on July 30, following the Battle of the Crater, in
which a mine was exploded under the Confederate works. Southern forces led by
Robert E. Lee, aided by
an elaborate system of field fortifications that eventually stretched
thirty-seven miles, fought on the strategic defensive, gradually surrendering
the city's supply lines to a series of Grant's offensives. Grant at last
shattered Lee's defenses on April 2, 1865, leading to the evacuation of Richmond
and Petersburg that night.
Within a week,
Lee would surrender the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomattox Court House, ninety miles
west of Petersburg, for all practical purposes ending the Civil War in
Virginia. MORE...

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Background

When Grant arrived in the East in
March 1864 as general-in-chief of all Union armies, he hoped to destroy his
Confederate opponents on the battlefield. His attempt to do so, a collection
of engagements known as the Overland Campaign, resulted in
unprecedented and continuous combat that swept the main armies in Virginia
from the Rapidan River
to the outskirts of Richmond. When the smoke cleared from the last clash at
Cold Harbor
(1864), the Army of Northern Virginia still blocked Grant's access to
Richmond and remained sufficiently viable to fight effectively on the
defensive.

On June 12, 1864, Lee hoped to relieve pressure on Richmond by ordering about
one-third of his army, under Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, to repulse a Union force
moving east from the Shenandoah Valley and, eventually, to threaten the U.S.
capital at Washington, in the 1862 footsteps of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Early's
offensive and Grant's reaction to it would influence affairs around
Petersburg through the winter of 1865.

Meanwhile, Grant adopted a bold plan.
As Early's men began their movement west, Grant's forces disengaged from
Lee's front and marched east, while engineers constructed a 2,000-foot-long
pontoon bridge across the James River. Grant shifted the bulk of his army to
the south side of the James, leaving Lee uncertain of his whereabouts.
Grant's new target would be Petersburg, the logistical key to the survival
of Richmond. On the morning of June 15, 1864, the lead elements of Grant's
legions began their approach toward Petersburg's eastern defenses, manned by
elements of a woefully outgunned Confederate army commanded by General Pierre G. T.
Beauregard.

The Campaign

The campaign for Petersburg lasted
292 days and involved scores of military engagements both south of the
Appomattox River and north of the James, resulting in an estimated 70,000
casualties. The Union army maintained the strategic initiative during the
entire operation, launching eight distinct offensives, supported by several
cavalry and infantry raids. Once Grant abandoned hope of taking Petersburg
(or Richmond) by main attack, he focused his attention on strangling those
cities and the Army of Northern Virginia by cutting each supply line leading
from the south or west. Lee invariably responded to each Union assault with
tactical counter-thrusts aimed at limiting Union progress.

This military rhythm defined a pattern of short, brutal battles followed by a
period of construction and consolidation that expanded both armies' defense
lines. In fact, the Petersburg Campaign witnessed the peak of field
fortifications during the Civil War. Each side built elaborate and
all-but-impregnable earthworks, compelling Grant to find ways to flank the
Confederate defenses and allowing Lee to remain defiant despite fighting the
campaign at a two-to-one numerical disadvantage. Along portions of the lines
east and directly south of Petersburg, the opposing armies occupied trenches
less than four hundred yards apart, leading to a vicious brand of warfare
where sharpshooters exacted a deadly toll from enemies who dared expose
their heads above the works.

The Union army also waged limited and random war against the citizens of
Petersburg. Capture of the original Confederate works east of the city
allowed Union artillery to deploy within range of Petersburg's factories,
public buildings, and dwellings. More than 600 structures in Petersburg
sustained shell damage. Most of the eastern half of the town was rendered
uninhabitable, creating a pathetic community of civilian refugees driven
from their homes by the prospect of sudden death.

Grant's initial advance against
Petersburg promised success. A vastly superior body of Union troops moved
west from the City Point
area on June 15, 1864, confronted by a handful of Beauregard's troops from
the Confederate Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia,
headquartered in Petersburg. The local Union commander failed to appreciate
the weakness of his opponents and saw only the frowning earth and log
bastions of Petersburg's permanent defense line, reminiscent of the powerful
fortifications that had brought him to grief at Cold Harbor less than two
weeks earlier.

Union forces delayed their attacks until seven o'clock in the evening, but
once under way they rolled over and around the outmanned Confederates. Some
voices counseled a night advance into the city, but conservative Union
commanders seemed satisfied with capturing more than a mile of the
Confederate lines. During the next three days, the entire Army of the Potomac,
along with much of Major
General Benjamin F. Butler's Army of the James, appeared in front of
Beauregard's lines and lunged forward in a series of bloody, uncoordinated
assaults. Beauregard fended off these attacks on the one hand while writing
urgent messages to Lee on the other, imploring the Army of Northern Virginia
to send help to Petersburg. Lee gradually responded, and by June 18 his
entire force had taken position behind the second makeshift line Beauregard
had erected during the previous seventy-two hours. The presence of Lee's
army ended Grant's prospects for quickly capturing Petersburg.

Grant now looked west, hoping to seize the Jerusalem Plank Road, running
south out of Petersburg, and the Petersburg (Weldon) Railroad
that connected Richmond and Petersburg with Wilmington, North Carolina, the
Confederacy's primary Atlantic port. Between June 22 and June 24, Union
forces gained control of the wagon road, but in what would become typical
during the campaign, a sharp Confederate counterattack drove the Northerners
off the railroad and halted Union territorial gains.

While Grant prepared his next attempt to capture the railroad, officers in
the Union Ninth Corps hatched an unorthodox plan. The opposing trench lines
ran in close proximity a mile southeast of town, and here the 48th
Pennsylvania regiment, commanded by Union colonel Henry C. Pleasants, a
mining engineer, began excavating a tunnel aimed at a Confederate
strongpoint. Grant and the commander of the Army of the Potomac, Major
General George G.
Meade, tolerated this scheme but put little faith in its
practicality.

Within a few weeks, however, the
Pennsylvanians had completed their mine and began packing the shaft with
black powder. By then Grant and Meade had become believers. They sent an
expedition across the James at Deep Bottom to draw Lee's army away
from the intended target above the mine, and made elaborate plans to exploit
the explosion with a massive artillery bombardment followed by a dash to
high ground. In Union hands, this terrain would render Petersburg
defenseless.

A division of United States Colored Troops bore responsibility for this key
tactical maneuver, but Meade ordered them replaced at the eleventh hour. The
general was unsure of their combat prowess and worried about political
repercussions should the attack fail and the black division suffer.

At 4:44 a.m. on July 30 the mine exploded, leaving a huge crater in the earth
and killing 278 Confederates instantly. The subsequent infantry attacks did
not go as well, and under Lee's direct supervision a series of
counterassaults regained the lost ground. Grant would call the Battle of the
Crater "the saddest affair I have witnessed in the war" and returned to his
strategy of targeting the Confederate supply lines.

Between August 18 and August 21, Union forces
captured the Petersburg (Weldon) Railroad and withstood two
ambitious Confederate attempts to drive them from the tracks. Now Lee's
communications would rely on the South Side Railroad, running west
from Petersburg toward Lynchburg and the Boydton Plank Road, which served as an
alternate route from North Carolina now that the direct rail link to
Wilmington had been severed. In an attempt to eliminate these supply routes,
Union forces would launch their fifth and sixth offensives in late September
and late October respectively. Neither operation would be successful,
although the Northerners briefly occupied the Boydton Plank Road on October
27. Grant did manage to expand his siege lines several more miles to the
west, as well as to capture Fort Harrison, a key Confederate bastion north of the James, in
one of the companion operations that defined Grant's strategy.

U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's
re-election in November 1864 relieved the pressure on Grant to demonstrate
tactical progress in Virginia and, except for a raid toward Hicksford in
early December, the guns fell silent around Petersburg. Soon, winter's
freezing and thawing turned the region's dirt roads into quagmires, and the
armies settled into cheerless winter camps. The Army of the Potomac relied
on the United
States Military Railroad to deliver supplies to its Spartan
shanties. This efficient example of Northern industrial and engineering
prowess connected Grant's huge supply base at City Point with the front,
delivering bread still warm from the ovens. The Confederates had no such
facilities. Shortages of firewood were endemic, and most units experienced
prolonged periods where available rations and warm clothing failed to meet
the army's basic needs. Lee confronted a distressing and increasing volume
of desertions as veteran
soldiers succumbed to hunger, pessimism, and the repeated pleas of their
suffering families.

A brief break in the weather early in February 1865 allowed Union forces to
lunge at the Boydton Plank Road, but Lee repulsed them at the Battle of Hatcher's
Run, both armies extending their lines after the fight. The
Confederates faced a more severe crisis in late March. The spring sun began
to dry the roads in Dinwiddie County, promising renewed military action. Even more
ominously, Major General Philip H. Sheridan, Grant's commander in the Shenandoah Valley,
had dispatched the remnants of Early's army and was riding toward Petersburg
with some ten thousand well-armed cavalry.

Utilizing Sheridan's Army of the
Shenandoah, Meade's Army of the Potomac, and the Army of the James, now
under Major General E. O. C. Ord, Grant unleashed his final Petersburg
offensive on March 29. Union forces quickly captured the Boydton Plank Road
and prepared to strike the South Side Railroad. Lee responded by summoning
his only reserve division, the Virginians of Major General George E. Pickett,
west to the critical intersection at Five Forks. This junction controlled
Grant's best access to the South Side Railroad.

Pickett, supported by Confederate cavalry under Lee's nephew, Major General
Fitzhugh Lee,
defeated Sheridan on March 31 near Dinwiddie Court House, while an ad
hoc force of Confederate infantry fought a see-saw battle at White Oak Road.
The next day, Sheridan and the Union Fifth Corps counterattacked and
scattered Pickett's troops at Five Forks, setting the stage for the
campaign's climactic day.

Grant ordered a massive assault at
dawn on April 2, 1865, hoping to sustain Sheridan against a possible
counterblow at Five Forks and exploit any weakness along the Confederate
lines. By 5:15 a.m., The Union Sixth Corps managed to break through Lee's
lines about six miles southwest of Petersburg. As a result, Lee informed
Confederate president Jefferson Davis that he would be compelled to evacuate both
Petersburg and the capital that night. Union forces finally captured the
South Side Railroad, while Lee fought determined rearguard actions west and
south of Petersburg, allowing him to execute his retreat plans after dark.
At 4:28 the next morning, a Michigan regiment entered Petersburg and raised
the American flag above the courthouse and post office. For the first time
in nearly four years, Petersburg belonged to the Union.

Aftermath

Unlike the chaos that prevailed in Richmond, Petersburg surrendered amid only
moderate degrees of arson and pillage. On the morning of April 3, Lincoln
journeyed from City Point and met with Grant for ninety minutes on the porch
of Thomas Wallace's South Market Street mansion. The Union leaders discussed
postwar policy until Grant departed to execute the campaign that would
eventually corral Lee.

One division of Union troops remained in Petersburg, while the bulk of
Grant's forces dashed west, preventing Lee from turning south to join
Confederate general Joseph
E. Johnston's forces in North Carolina. Finally, on April 9, 1865,
Grant cornered his enemy at Appomattox Court House and met with
Lee that afternoon to effect the surrender of the Confederacy's principal
army. Events at Appomattox hastened the surrender of other Confederate
forces, placing the Petersburg Campaign as the proximate cause of the end of
the war.

Time Line

June 9, 1864
- Fletcher H. Archer leads his Virginia Reserves in a successful defense of Petersburg against a Union cavalry attack in what comes to be known as the Battle of Old Men and Young Boys.

June 12, 1864
- Union general Ulysses S. Grant begins his shift away from the lines at Cold Harbor.

June 14, 1864
- Union general Ulysses S. Grant's army begins to reach the south side of the James River.

June 15–18, 1864
- The opening battle for control of the city of Petersburg results in the capture of several miles of Confederate line, but the Confederates maintain control of the city.

June 22–24, 1864
- Union general Ulysses S. Grant's second offensive in the Petersburg Campaign captures the Jerusalem Plank Road.

June 22–July 1, 1864
- The Wilson-Kautz Raid targets the Southside Railroad, Petersburg (Weldon) Railroad, and Richmond and Danville Railroad, but ends with the Union raiders being trapped and badly beaten at Reams Station.

June 25, 1864
- Members of the 48th Pennsylvania, miners led by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants, begin digging a long tunnel to the Confederate lines in front of Petersburg, Virginia.

July 30, 1864
- The Battle of the Crater causes 4,000 Union casualties and, though a technical success, is a tactical catastrophe for Ulysses S. Grant.

August 18–21, 1864
- The Battle of the Weldon Railroad captures Robert E. Lee’s primary supply line to North Carolina.

August 25, 1864
- Union general Ulysses S. Grant's attempt to expand destruction of Robert E. Lee's supply line on the Petersburg (Weldon) Railroad ends with defeat at the Battle of Reams Station. The defeat is tactical only, however. In fact, Union forces control the railroad for the rest of the war, forcing Lee to reroute his supply lines.

September 16, 1864
- Confederate cavalry under General Wade Hampton return to their lines with 2,400 beef cattle taken from the Union supply corral at Coggin's Point, in what is later known as the Beefsteak Raid.

September 29–October 2, 1864
- Ulysses S. Grant's fifth offensive during the Petersburg Campaign results in fighting north of the James River at New Market Heights and Fort Harrison, and south of the Appomattox River at Peebles Farm and Poplar Spring Church. The Confederates lose territory but no vital supply lines.

October 27, 1864
- Ulysses S. Grant's sixth offensive during the Petersburg Campaign ends at the Battle of Boydton Plank Road or Burgess's Mill with the Confederates still in control of that important transportation link.

November 8, 1864
- Abraham Lincoln is reelected president of the United States.

December 8–11, 1864
- The Hicksford or "Apple-Jack" Raid by Union infantry and cavalry damages the Petersburg (Weldon) Railroad well south of Petersburg, but does little permanent harm.

February 3, 1865
- Aboard the River Queen, anchored near Fort Monroe, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln and secretary of state William Seward meet with Confederate representatives to discuss the possibility of peace. The only agreement the parties reach in the Hampton Roads Peace Conference is to continue the war.

February 5–7, 1865
- The Battle of Hatcher's Run extends both the Union and Confederate siege lines but has little strategic value.

March 29–April 2, 1865
- Union general Ulysses S. Grant's final offensive at Petersburg captures the Boydton Plank Road and the South Side Railroad and breaks Lee's defenses southwest of the city, compelling Lee to evacuate Richmond and Petersburg.

April 3, 1865
- Union troops occupy Petersburg.

April 9, 1865
- Confederate general Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia surrender to Union general Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.

Contributed by A. Wilson Greene, the president of Pamplin Historical Park & The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier near Petersburg, Virginia. He is the author of Civil War Petersburg: Confederate City in the Crucible of War (2006) and The Final Battles of the
Petersburg Campaign: Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion (2008).